


How you'd feel

by themoonowl



Series: A Real Hero [19]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Friendship, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Making Out, Mass Effect 2, POV Kaidan Alenko, Post-Mass Effect 1, Pre-Mass Effect 2, Therapy, actually this is a big bi mood, being chaotic dumb about a gender you fancy, mixed first/second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21756322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonowl/pseuds/themoonowl
Summary: Samed is presumed dead. Kaidan deals with it in his own way.Also wanted to play with first/second person POVs.A very minor CW for what almost becomes dubious consent. Keyword is almost.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko & Citadel Doctor, Kaidan Alenko/Citadel Doctor, Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard
Series: A Real Hero [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429021
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	How you'd feel

It was about a year after the Normandy crashed, I think.

I was on the Citadel, for some reason or another, and there was that sign again.  _ Summer of 169. _ The place where you and I went out for drinks once.

There I was, the same place where we sat, where the Canucks lost and where you told me stuff about yourself as we drank some nice beer. Your dad being a mechanic, your mom a painter. How you used to drink this drink, arak I think it was called? The orange light coming from the bar hit your face and your hair in all the right ways as you were telling me all that.

Everything hit me like a moving truck.

I remembered you called me cute. I remembered the balcony, I remembered trying so hard at pool because I wanted to impress you.

It was a date. And. And I liked it. Liked you, in fact.

The beer had a foul taste all of a sudden. Why was I even here? Everything reminded me of you here.

You were gone.

I'd never find out what our second date would be like. Or how your lips would feel when we'd eventually kiss.

I paid for the unfinished beer and left. Couldn't stay, it suffocated, every memory, all those feelings, I— 

I should've kissed you. On that balcony. Shit, why didn't I realize all of this before?

I needed a drink. Lots of them.

The next thing I remember is another bar, a club actually. The place was loud and dim and would normally give me a headache. But it didn't remind me of you and it served all these different drinks, from all over the galaxy. It was good.

Two beers, two shots of whiskey, and a guy came by, asked if the seat next to me was free. We started chatting and I noticed how he looked a bit like you. Same full lips, same brown eyes—or I think they were brown. Hard to tell with the mix of different lights blasting us in the face. He even had curly hair like yours.

Three more beers and some more casual conversation later, I went for it.

My lips were on his as the music kicked through my eardrums. My hand cupped his jaw and the whole time I thought, maybe this is how you'd feel. Maybe this is how you'd taste, of cherries and minty hops. Maybe this is how you'd smell, of some pine-scented cologne. Only it’d be mixed with that smoky smell of burning wires you always had. And maybe this is how your face would feel in my hands, your almost-permanent stubble, even when you’d just shaved. 

I was kissing you.

Or. I wished I was. I pulled away and opened my eyes.

This guy looked nothing like you. His lips were thinner and his hair was too styled. Yours was either short and put together or longer and messy. No in-between.

My hands were trembling on his face. "I'm. I'm sorry," I said and bolted.

My head felt heavy as I sat holding it. The music died down now that I was outside, though the bass still kicked through the walls. I noticed the club's name—Purgatory. I remembered how you said you were a bit religious—this felt like another slap in the face. A mistake, all of it.

"Hey," that same guy's gentle voice came through the numb bass. "Are you okay?" He sat next to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

Next thing I remember is waking up, my head feeling like it'd split open. The bed I laid on was made and I still had all my clothes on, even the boots. I got up and looked up at the windows, the rising sun casting an orange light over everything. There was some sort of sea too, or ocean—a beach. This wasn't Vancouver. This wasn't my place.

What the hell did I get myself into?

"That's Porto Seguro," a voice came from behind me.

I turned and the guy from last night laid in a wide chair next to a bookcase across from the bed; legs over one of the armrests, still wearing the same clothes as last night and looking a little worse for wear.

His name's Miguel, turns out. He had a psychology practice on the Citadel, specializing in military-related trauma. The location for it made sense, he said, it’s a space station—lots of folks from the military come and go. He was from Porto Seguro, Brazil, which is why that beach was there, on his windows’ display. He'd get homesick sometimes, he said, living and working outside Earth.

As for what’d happened the night before? That was a bit embarrassing. Miguel told me I wasn't making any sense, sitting in front of that club. I'd been sobbing and shaking—a mess, really. So he took me in, let me crash at his place; he took the chair and gave me his bed to sleep on. He knew the drill, he said, he'd heard this sort of thing happen many times with his patients. Better I spend the night in a bed than end up—who knows where in the state I was in.

He got up and made me some coffee. It was a bit too sweet for my tastes, with steamed milk in it and some swirly patterns, but it did the job. Woke me up.

Miguel was a sweet guy.

I took a good look at him now that the light was better. He looked absolutely nothing like you—I don't even know why I thought that in the first place. Still a cute guy but. Yeah. He had brown eyes, but nothing like yours. Yours would have that chocolate tint to them somehow. His nose looked about the same as yours, wide and turning down, but. Yeah. He wasn't you.

Nor did he want to be. He was a therapist, he'd seen this stuff before. Wasn't interested in being the rebound, in a way.

So he became a really good friend, instead. Though, my therapist more like—guess I needed that the most. We'd meet almost every week and talk. Everything would feel just a bit better. The fact that I would never see you again, the fact that things were left unfinished started to sink in. Guess that night at Purgatory wasn't a complete waste. It was gonna be alright.

Things were looking up.

Until the rumors started that you were alive.

Until you stood in front of me on Horizon a year later. The same full lips, the same wide downturned nose, the same permanent stubble on your face. Your eyes had that chocolate tint to them but they were sad now, broken. And your dark hair. It was short, but it had the occasional curl that poked out. That made it the perfect kind of messy. Your kind of messy.

It was you, really you. You were alive.

And working for Cerberus.

I reported back to the Citadel and met with Miguel afterwards. I told him about the entire thing—or at least, the parts that weren't classified.

"And how did that make you feel?" he asked, his concern barely hidden behind his most therapist-sounding voice.

How did that make me feel? Relieved. Happy. Angry. Sad. I don't know? I always thought, you and me, we were similar, you know? You'd always look for ways to get the job done right, instead of doing it at the cost of lives and now? Working for Cerberus? What the hell?

Miguel said something about how I'd stopped seeing you as some ideal and started seeing you as more of an equal—how that was good, apparently. Maybe it was. Sure didn't feel that way. Besides, as far as Miguel knew, you were out there working for some random shady group of people. Not Cerberus.

Then he asked that question. “I remember there were feelings on your part. Are some of those still there?”

…Maybe?

You were standing in front of me and. And my heart stopped for a moment when I realized it was you. And I didn’t—I didn’t do anything.

Why?

I remembered how I wanted to kiss you on that balcony and. And now I finally had a second chance and I—well I didn’t blew it, not really. You Were With Cerberus. I couldn’t—

I thought you were dead! For two years! And now you showed up, a ghost. A ghost that turned out wasn’t a ghost. It hurt my brain just thinking about it.

I guess I wasn't the same person I used to be two years ago. Maybe that was the case for you too. I got promoted to Major, I had big responsibilities, Biotics Division. And you—

Maybe whatever happened—or was supposed to happen… Maybe it was time to— 

_ "Originally presumed killed in action, the first human Spectre—former Alliance Commander Samed Shepard—landed on the Alliance base near Vancouver, Canada earlier this morning. Docking on a ship similar to the SSV Normandy, Commander Shepard, Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau and several others turned themselves in after working with the organisation known as Cerberus, offering intel and...” _

Everything pulled hard to port.


End file.
